Room 52 Gallery of Ancient Iran
The palace at Susa was built in 490B.C. by Darius the Great and was decorated with friezes of painted tiles.
Esther became queen to Xerxes I, king of Persia around 480B.C. (also known as Ahasuerus in the Bible) and lived at Susa.
The picture is of a life-sized Tiled Archer, or ‘immortal’, from the palace of Susa.
Esther would have been familiar with this picture.
Artaxerxes temporarily halted the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Ezra 4.7-23), and dispatched Ezra to visit the city in 458 B.C.
Nehemiah, cup-bearer to the king, is sent 13 years later to Jerusalem as governor.
Xerxes, the son of Darius I, ruled an impressive empire stretching from India to Ethiopia. He was assassinated and succeeded by his son Artaxerxes.